Throwback Thursday is a new DyeStat feature that allows us to remember and celebrate some of the great meets and performances that have been a part of our DyeStat coverage since John Dye founded the site.  Thanks to many stories, photos and videos that have been preserved in our archives, we’re able to relive and share with you some of the very best of DyeStat.com.

Mobile 2003: The Rise of the X-Man

CARTER'S 400 WIN | CARTER'S 200 WIN | ATHLETE OF THE MEET AWARD |
ALL MOBILE 2003 VIDEOS | 2003 MOBILE COVERAGE

By Steve Underwood

For all of us who love the sport of track and field, there are few things that generate more excitement than the lead-up to a great showdown on the track; those nervous moments when the athletes are being introduced by a frenzied announcer, the athletes are doing their final shakedowns, and fans are buzzing with anticipation.

Such a moment there was as the one and only X-Man and the rest of a great 400 field lined up during the 2003 Mobile Challenge of Champions for a race that still resonates in the memories of all who saw it.  Xavier Carter was on hand from Palm Bay HS (Melbourne, Fla.), riding the crest of a wave that would cascade that spring through sprint triples at Arcadia and his 3A state meet, and a stellar adidas Outdoor Nationals double.  But his season really caught fire that first April Saturday in Alabama.

“Other than when (60 dash USR holder) Casey Combest ran here, that was the most excitement we’ve had here, the most electricity in the crowd,” recalled Mobile Challenge of Champions meet director Steve Schoenwald this week.  Combest ran the 100 in Mobile in 1999, the year before DyeStat started coming down to the Gulf Coast extravaganza.  But in 2003, John and Donna Dye were on hand for their fourth straight year to capture the action.

You could hardly have a better field than what was about to explode from the line in that one-lapper.  The local favorite was defending champ and 2002 DyeStat MVP Arthur Davis, a senior from Mobile’s Williamson HS who had a best of 46.58.  And then there was the blinding talent from Georgia, Newman’s Cedric Goodman, who – like Carter – was also coming off a precocious soph year and would eventually take second in that summer’s World Youth 400.  “These guys had some great resumes,” said Schoenwald.

Originally, Reggie Witherspoon – the new national indoor record holder at 46.11 – was entered as well.  But he was unable to make it, leaving Carter as the favorite.  As a soph, Carter had won the state 3A 200 and 400, with bests of 21.02 and 46.90.  Already in the young 2003 season, he had run 20.82 and 47.22.

Carter’s coach, Gary Evans, knew the competition was still going to be brutal.  “We knew about Arthur and Cedric,” he said.  “We thought the biggest thing Xavier would have to overcome was coming into Arthur’s backyard to battle him.  Arthur would have that extra adrenaline.”

Sure enough, adrenaline propelled Davis to a blazing start in the first 200 and he gapped Carter and the rest.  But “he just took it out too hard,” said Schoenwald.  With Carter having worked all week on the second half of his race, said Evans, he was primed to respond.

“I’d been watching Xavier since he was 11,” he added. “With 150 left to go, I thought he would be stronger and be able to reel in Davis.”

Down the homestretch, Carter’s finish was overwhelming and fans waited to hear the time ... 45.88!!  “It was his first time under 46,” said Evans.  “He’d been really close, so it was kind of a big relief for him.”  Davis and Goodman followed in 46.88 and 46.90.  Not many meets, especially April invitationals, get three under 47 in a 400.

Carter would go on to win the 200 decisively in 21.08, into an 0.8 wind, and he was named the DyeStat Athlete of the Meet on the boys’ side.

No one knew it yet, but the 45.88 would actually be Carter’s fastest 400 of the season.  But a week later at Arcadia, he would have a spectacular 10.38/20.85(both legal)/46.72 triple.  The state meet triple in May would include a US#1 20.69.  Then at adidas in June, he went 20.77 and 45.97.

2004, Carter’s senior year, would see more fireworks.  At the National Scholastic Indoor Champs at The Armory, he would blaze a still-standing USR of 20.69, becoming the first prep under 21 under cover.  Outdoors, he would get down to 45.44.

However, Carter did not return for the 2004 Mobile Challenge.  “He was dealing with turf toe and we decided not to run it,” said Evans.  Yet the meet saw another sub-46 in the 400 as Goodman smoked a 45.94, topping another new indoor USR-setter from that winter, Elzie Coleman of New York.  “If Xavier hadn’t gotten hurt, who knows how fast that 2004 race could have been,” said Schoenwald.  “And even so, how many (regular-season) meets do you see with sub-46s in back-to-back years?”

Almost none, that’s how many.  But those were good years in the 400, and the Mobile Challenge got the lion’s share of the stars.

And few sprint stars have ever burned brighter than Carter – when at his best.  Of course, he also shone on the gridiron and went to LSU for both sports.  During an epic 2006 campaign, he captured NCAA outdoor titles at 100 and 400, and ran on two winning Tiger relays, a feat not achieved since Jesse Owens in 1936.  He was the NCAA Indoor and Outdoor Track Athlete of the Year, then in the summer scorched a 19.63 at Lausanne over 200 – history’s #2 performance globally at the time.  “He could have been kind of like the American Usain Bolt,” said Evans.

There would more good races sprinkled through the years between 2007 and 2011, along with an eighth in the 2008 Olympic Trials 100.  But there would also be legal troubles: A 2010 story in the Tampa Bay Tribune details arrests in January of that year and 2008, as well. 

While Coach Evans, who now coaches professionally with Pure Athletics, did not want to elaborate on the record about Carter’s recent troubles.  He did say that he considers Carter retired from sprinting at the moment – but wishes him well, on or off the track.

In his USATF bio from a few years back, Carter talked about his growth into the sport as a youngster and paid some homage to his mentor:  “I was one of the slowest guys at first ... I really wasn’t interested in track. You could see there was talent there, but I was kind of a lazy kid and just wanted to play football. I would lose. Then after a couple of years I thought, ‘If I’m going to be in it, why not win?’ So I began to work and became one of the quickest in the state. The track coach (Gary Evans) pulled it out of me.”

The “it” that Coach Evans pulled out of Carter was definitely on display that April, 2003 in Mobile.  And those who saw it will never forget it.